


Drowning

by Aaronlisa



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied Past Encounter, M/M, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9220589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/pseuds/Aaronlisa
Summary: His grief is consuming him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fionhen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionhen/gifts).



> Set during the Illyria-arc of Season Five.

Fred was dead. 

Whatever Angel and Spike had done had ensured that Illyria wouldn't be raised. 

But Fred was still dead. 

And it hurt. The knowledge of it burned him. 

Yet somehow he managed to go into the office and work through his day as if nothing was wrong. As if the world hadn't become colder and darker when she had died in his arms. 

* * * 

When he got home, he wanted to do nothing more than have a hot shower and then drown himself in a bottle of whiskey. Instead he comes home to find Spike sitting on his sofa. 

"Get out," Wesley snarls. 

"D'you think you're the only one hurting?" Spike asks. 

"I don't really care to hear anything about your pathetic and snivelling grief over her loss." 

"I wasn't talkin' bout me," Spike says as he stands up. "You always were such a ponce, so self-absorbed." 

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Of course you don't." 

Before Wesley can push him out of his home, Spike has him pinned against the wall. There's something familiar with how the blond vampire is pressed against him, one hand tight around his throat and another wrapped around his left wrist. Spike doesn't say a word, but tightens his grip around Wesley's neck, his black painted nails sharp against his skin. He hates how his body responds. This isn't who he is anymore. 

"You always were such a pretty boy," Spike purrs in his ear. 

"Do you think sex is going to make this better?" Wesley asks. 

Either Spike has him mistaken for someone else - which is plausible - or Spike was one of several nameless and faceless men that Wesley had found pleasure with in a bathhouse or two before he had been sent to America by his father and the Council. It doesn't really matter because that's not who he is anymore. 

Spike lets him go and his throat hurts but not as much as everything else. 

"Are you done proving whatever inane point you came here to prove?"

"No," Spike snarls. 

Wesley pushes himself off of the wall and makes his way into his kitchen. He ignores Spike who follows him and watches as Wesley pours them both a tumbler full of whiskey. 

"Did you know we used to speak of you?" 

"I don't really care," Wesley replies.

"She loved you," Spike tells him. "Before Angel and I left to find a cure, she told me to watch over you." 

"I doubt that and even if she did, you're wasting your time." 

"I think your clever little bird deduced that there was something between us." 

"There's nothing between us," Wesley snarls. "If there was something between us, it was nothing more than a youthful indiscretion on my part and no doubt a drunken night of you deciding who to fuck and who to kill." 

"Yeah you're probably right about that," Spike says. 

His voice is full of some indescribable emotion and for a moment, Wesley feels something but then his grief nearly consumes him whole. How dare he forget about her even if for a moment? 

"Look, I get that you hurt," Spike tries again. "We all do." 

"You don't understand." 

Spike gives him a look that is challenging. He ignores it. Instead he sits down on the sofa, the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other. Spike sits down beside him. His glass is still full. 

The night seems to drag. It's silent and dark in his apartment. Spike drinks his glass slowly while Wesley can't seem to drink fast enough. He doesn't want to feel or think or talk or anything. He just wants to remain numb. 

Finally when the room is bathed in a dim grey light of the fast approaching dawn. 

"She loved me," Wesley finally says. "And I failed her." 

Spike doesn't say anything. Instead he pulls the empty bottle out of Wesley's hand. He pulls the other man into a standing position and guides him into his bedroom. They don't say anything as Spike's cold hands efficiently strip him naked. There's no desire in the action, instead it's cold and clinical. It makes Wesley remember a reckless night when he had escaped to London to get away from his father and his expectations. Maybe the blond stranger had been Spike but Wesley knows what it feels to be undressed by a man that looks similar to Spike - cool hands that touch him ways that make him feel so many things that he can't even name - and he feels unfaithful to her for even thinking this. 

"Get some sleep," Spike orders him as he gently pushes him down onto the bed. 

"I have to go to work," Wesley mumbles. 

"I think it's okay to have a day off today," Spike tells him. 

Spike covers him with a blanket - it's colourful and one that she had given him - and it hurts so much. He feels as if he's shaking and he's falling apart. He can't stop it but then Spike is there, grounding him, holding him in a way that she never could. He stops trembling and in the sudden silence of his bedroom, he realizes with some embarrassment that he had been making a keening sound. 

"She loved you," Spike quietly says. "She'd hate to see you like this." 

"I know but everything hurts. I don't want to feel."

The vampire is silently. The room is dark and quiet. It feels safe to let his grief loose of its cage.

 

* * * 

It's the late afternoon when he finally wakes up. He stumbles out of his room wearing an old robe. Spike is in his kitchen making a cup of Earl Grey tea. There's a box of donuts on the counter. Wesley sneers at the donuts but accepts the tea. 

"Sorry it's a habit from Sunnydale," Spike says as he waves a hand at the donuts. "Can't stand them myself but Giles always had them for the Slayer and her crew." 

"It's fine." 

He's embarrassed. But he feels better. Even if that's the wrong word to say. He doubts that things will ever be better. But he doesn't feel like his grief is going to consume him whole. 

"So about last night," Spike says as he rubs the back of his neck. 

"Let's not talk about it," Wesley says. "Ever." 

"I did see you or someone who looked like you once in London," Spike awkwardly says. 

Wesley blushes. "It was a long time ago." 

"Of course it was," Spike says with a nod.

There's a part of him that hates how he's rejecting Spike. He knows the vampire is hurting just as much as he is. And there is something there between them, even now when he's sober and not tightly wrapped up in his own grief, but it's not the time or the place. He wonders if it will ever be and he hates how guilty he feels as if he's betraying her. 

((END))


End file.
